Marked for Life
by badriddance
Summary: An AU where Dan is scarred so badly that his daytime identity is compromised. Will he have to give it up completely, become Nite Owl as utterly as Walter became Rorschach? From a prompt on the kinkmeme. NO/R eventually.
1. Chapter 1

Lights in the old glass foundry led them to the arsonist. It was hard to tell how old he was. He was gaunt and stripped to the waist, hair singed short, and covered with deliberately placed burn scars. In the red glow of the foundry he had somehow kept going, he looked like a fallen angel who didn't realize he was in hell. He was turning a long, thin rod in the furnace. He had burned down three churches and a day care center.

The foundry was so loud that they were able to walk right up to him. Rorschach was probably willing to kick him face first into the glory hole and let him burn. He settled for a vicious kick to the ribs. The arsonist collapsed with a howl. He had lashed out with the rod. It had missed Rorschach, but a splash of molten glass had spattered across Nite Owl's mouth. The shock of that pain had kept him from being able to stop the swing of the rod itself.

The goggles saved his eye, but just barely. The lens cracked from the heat when the white-hot pipe hit. The hot metal had seared into his flesh, making the rubber layer of his cowl blister and shrivel. Then, the lunatic had ripped it away and it had take an inch wide swatch of his face with it. No blade had ever felt like this. He had screamed and screamed until he managed to cram his own fist into his mouth. He couldn't bite down. His jaw felt paralyzed with fire. He was gaping like that alley cat that he had seen as a child, jaw broken by a close call with the garbage truck. The cat had suffered quietly. He couldn't. It simply hurt too bad.

Rorschach had a second to choose between running to help and subduing the arsonist. Turning his back on his screaming partner caused such a twisting sensation in his throat that it felt like the most natural thing in the world to feel another throat strain in his hands.

The crunch of the spine was lost in the roar of the furnace.

The rod clanged to the floor.

The body fell with a gentler thud. Then, Rorschach turned back to Nite Owl.

Nite Owl was on all fours in the years-old threads of spilled glass. One hand was pressed to his mouth, the other to his face. The sounds coming out of him were muffled by the glove, but still sounded more like a stricken animal than a man. The hand that had been in his mouth clutched at Rorschach's lapels when he knelt close enough. The other didn't budge, material stretched thin over the knuckles.

Rorschach was forcing himself to be calm.

Burns felt much worse than other wounds, but they bled less.

It was obviously painful, but maybe not that bad. Nite Owl could be excused for this behavior, but the sooner he got hold of himself the better.

"Let me see," he said, slipping his hand around the other's wrist. His voice was steady, no more concerned than if he had been asked to remove a splinter. He had to use force to pull his partner's hand. "Nite Owl, let me _see_…"

The hand came away. Rorschach felt his guts ice over at the sight. It wasn't bleeding because the wound had been cauterized, but there was a stripe ripped from his flesh, chin to eyebrow. Rorschach pulled the ruined goggles away. He pushed the hood back so that it wouldn't be Nite Owl mutilated like this. It didn't help. If anything, seeing Daniel's honest, smooth face seared down to the bone made his frozen insides shatter.

One of them sobbed.

Rorschach clutched both sides of Daniel's face to see better.

The corner of Daniel's lips were charred and blistered as the burn followed a slight angle over his cheek, the cheek bone visible through the sizzled skin, a patch that the goggles had protected that had only blistered, and another glimpse of brow bone in a charred line through his eyebrow. His breathing hissed and hitched around his whimpers.

This was something stitches couldn't fix. This couldn't be rested off.

_Ice_, Rorschach thought, then remembered. _No wait. Not at first. Keep it clean, keep it damp. Painkillers._ Let it heal up enough and then that, that gel that the skin-and-bones slut at his old job used to rub on her leathery sunburn in the summers. Aloe. When it was healed enough.

"Up," he heard himself say. "Must get up." And somehow they staggered away from the heat and noise, back into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

"I can't go out like this," Dan said to the mirror. It had been weeks. The bandages were off. The red and black crispiness was gone, but there was still a seam of white scars pulling at his mouth and his eyelids. Three patches of bone were just under the surface at chin, cheek and brow. The scar on his mouth gave him a slight mumble. The scar itself didn't hurt. All those nerves had been fried. It was the skin attached that had burned and throbbed.

He hadn't been able to sleep for the pain.

Hadn't been able to bear being awake for the pain.

He didn't know where Rorschach had gotten the morphine he had seen on the nightstand when his head cleared. Didn't care. He remembered occasionally becoming too sleepy and heavy to scream. He wasn't about to complain now. It might have been what kept him sane.

Even with the worst of it over, he moved carefully. Any move could bring the pain back. He had to remind himself that even if it did hurt it wouldn't be like it had been. He had healed. He was not made of glass.

A skin graft might've helped the scarring. He could've afforded it. But then everyone would know. There would be records. Pictures.

Was it worth it to keep his civilian face if he had to give up his secret identity? Too late now. He would redesign his cowl so that it covered his whole face. Some of the prototypes already had that. Maybe he could rig up some sort of latex covering to plaster over the scar and apply make-up so that it looked natural.

Maybe he could just wait for dark and creep out in a hood like the Elephant Man.

He was restless. He was finally well enough to walk around and talk with out tooth-baring pain. He wanted to go out. For anything. Milk. Stamps. But he looked like an extra from an especially gritty pirate movie.

People would stare. Or avert their eyes.

The punk kids who had ignored him before would yell "Hey mister what happened to your face?" Both to mock and to find out.

They would remember.

He didn't stray far from this neighborhood in civilian guise. As nondescript as he was, showing up suddenly with an 8-inch scar across his face would get attention. And if a certain costumed avenger also began appearing disfigured? That would be the end of both his lives as he knew it.

"Not that this isn't," he muttered aloud. The scar around his eye pulled it into a intense stare, even when he squinted. His glasses wouldn't hide that. His goggles would.

A shadow had appeared behind him in the mirror. It was a presence that hadn't left his side since the night in the foundry. Having hands appear out of nowhere to touch his face seemed normal now. A gloved finger slid down the scar, warm as a tear.

"Hurts?"

"No. It's mostly numb. I can feel the touch, but it's like it's through my mask. Guess I won't be going out without one much anymore."

"Hrrm." It was a thoughtful sound. There was a quiver behind it. The hands didn't pull away.

"For the first time in my life, something about me that would make people look twice," Dan sighed. "Careful what you wish for, right?"

"Daniel…"

"No. I know. More inconvenient than anything. I'll live." He tried to grin, feeling the scar pull his face into new ripples to allow it. It didn't hurt, but his face felt uncomfortably tight.

"Daniel." Rorschach's voice was a whisper. He leaned close and went up on his toes. His mouth brushed the scarred corner of Dan's lips. His tongue traced the scar as high as he could reach.

Dan didn't think to lean down to keep the contact. He just swayed a bit.

"Feel that?" Rorschach asked. He did. While sensation through the scar tissue was limited, the kiss had lit a trail of tingles and prickles that didn't stop at the scar.

His mouth opened, but he didn't really gasp. It wasn't even that much of a shock. More of a welcome relief. Like the morphine. Something to soothe. Something to drown in. He dropped his head to press a kiss back. Rorschach had already ducked away. Dan grabbed his arms.

"You wait until I look like this to do that?" he asked.

"Scar changes nothing. Face under mask doesn't matter."

"You never licked my mask," Dan said. Then: "Did you?"

Rorschach snorted. "No."

"So it is my face."

This time Rorschach didn't answer.


	3. Chapter 3

"It's the scar then. Something about this," Dan pointed to his face. "Does something for you."

He didn't sound accusing, but he backed Rorschach up against the wall, against the mirror.

"…watched you suffer," Rorschach said.

"And that gets you hot?"

"No."

It was Dan's turn for a dramatic, almost threatening head tilt. The scar-pulled eye stared him down. Rorschach tried to explain. He wasn't good at it.

"I… You…" He couldn't say it was romantic. That was an insult to everything Daniel had suffered. No answer would do but truth, no matter how it fought to stay unspoken. "Always attractive," he managed. He saw the flash of disbelief and forced the words to keep flowing. "But beauty meaningless without… worth. Strength. You hid that. In plain sight. Only showed it under the mask."

Rorschach trailed off. He would've left it at that, but Dan leaned closer, close enough to breathe on him. He didn't speak, but Rorschach knew he was waiting for more.

"Not a disfigurement," he finally said. "Shows strength. And beauty. Neither hidden. Neither changing the other."

He didn't compare it to his own mask. He didn't say misery loves company and now his partner was bound to the cause, to him, even more closely now. It was cut into Dan's flesh, into his very bone. He couldn't take that off and hang it in the basement. Couldn't go upstairs and pretend that didn't exist until night fell.

Dan's hands slid to his shoulders.

"What is it then?" he whispered, close enough that the warmth from his breath sent wisps of black under the mask's surface.

"Proof!" Rorschach was warming to the subject. "Mark of a warrior. Hero. Blood shed, pain suffered, flesh and bone lost for someone else's sake. Badge of honor."

His hand raised to touch it again. Gently. As if he wasn't sure it wasn't still painful either. He started at the eyebrow, closing Dan's eye. Dan ducked his head, leaning into the touch, both eyes closed. A hand stroked down both sides of his face. The scar tingled. The skin blushed.

Like a bookmark too, Dan thought pressing the smaller, wirier body closer against the wall. Marking the place where your partner killed a man for hurting you. Or a tombstone, to mark where a previous life died.

The hands were replaced by a mouth, gentler than the fingers. Warmer. Wetter. Rorschach's head tilted back against the mirror, blocking Dan's view of the unscarred half of his reflection.

That felt like an omen.

It didn't feel wrong. 


End file.
